Month: July 2016

As some of you know I made (read: quickly threw together) a video a few months back that spliced together a selection of interview clips of Donald J. Trump from the past 30 years. I did it primarily for myself but shared it on YouTube for anyone else who might be interested. After a month or two the video hit ~300,000 views which of course blew my mind … but I figured, hey it’s an election season and people are out there in force looking for stuff to watch and share so I didn’t think that much of it.

Well after a few more months I found out at least 2 other people had re-posted my video in other places (kind of weird/rude but ok) and today I found yet another one on Facebook … crazily enough shared by one of my old college friends who may not even know I made the original! And the combined view count to-date of all of these copies is TRULY mind-blowing (at least IMHO). Here are the numbers as best I can track them (as of today) from all known copies of my video.

26 million views!!?? Really?!!

I’m guessing some % of these views are repeats or flukes but even if you discount some chunk of them it is still, IMHO, CRAZY to know that such a large number of people have seen something I literally threw together at my desk over a weekend. I was telling Holly the other day I can barely fathom what 1000 people would look like let alone millions of people (and that was when I thought the view count was ~3 million)! So nuts. Plus, this video is NOT short … it’s almost 30 minutes long – which makes the view count even crazier IMO.

For the record I do not claim the video itself has any kind of artistic merit. It really is just a bunch of interview clips that were all individually available on the internet already and I just sliced them up, threw them together and put some music to it. By the way if you’re up for a laugh check out some of the comments in the original video comments thread … some people REALLY hated the piano music! Either way I’m very glad so many people have been able to see some of these clips. Trump is certainly not perfect but the media really does twist the truth so badly. #MAGA!

Again this post is certainly not me bragging or anything I just think the view count for this video is crazy … and after finding the new Facebook copy today I had to post about it and tally the numbers. Here’s the original (updated, post-inauguration) video for reference/etc.

Counts Above Last Updated: 2016/08/03

2016121x Update

One of the YouTuber copies seems to have been taken down recently. Documenting for the record here:

20170201 Update

FYI I made a 15 minute version for people who don’t have 40 minutes to watch the (mostly) uncut version. This new shorter one is here.

20170x0x Update

Fun side note – someone from a Japanese TV station contacted me about airing some (or all) of this video on their television channel! I of course said yes. Sadly I don’t have a clip of how/when it aired … so it could have been in a positive or negative light – no idea. Either way a cool thing I thought. Here’s a pic to recap:

This one may seem a bit out of left field but a week or so ago I got an itch to put up a wall of people I consider heroes in my time along with links to their various social network links, podcasts, videos etc. I may or may not expand the list in the future as time permits but I’m going ahead and publishing it now with the first 9 people otherwise I would never release it. I’m sure none of the people on this list will ever know about this site and honestly no one else besides me may even know the page exists … but that’s enough for me. The site should generally work ok on PC, tablet or phone but there may be quirks I have to iron out over time.

Feel free to chime in if you have suggestions on people I might add, violent reactions you have to anyone on this current list etc. Here’s the link:

Sample Screenshot

Resume What?

A few months back I finally decided to try making an app to solve an issue that has been a (nerdy) annoyance of mine for quite some time. The issue, if you haven’t deducted from the title of this post, is the fact that neither YouTube nor Vimeo “remember” the place you last left off in a video if you can’t watch the whole thing in one sitting. So the core idea behind ResumeTube is to always “resume” where I leave off in a YouTube or Vimeo video.

I’ll admit this may sound like a silly, shallow “problem” to some people but I think anyone who consumes YouTube and Vimeo video content on a regular basis will understand and appreciate the frustration factor here. However, ultimately I made this app for myself so I’ll judge it’s success on whether I continue to use it or not long-term.

See below or head over to the Apple App Store if you want to read the full app background, future ideas, etc. Head over to the ResumeTube Facebook page if you have any questions, comments or suggestions about it! Please leave an app review or a Facebook like if you can to help out!

PS: Any friends and family interested in trying this out let me know and I’ll send you a promo code.

1.x Video/Screenshots

App Store Details

Finally a YouTube and Vimeo video player that saves your place!

Have you ever found yourself scrubbing the YouTube or Vimeo video progress bar back and forth trying to remember where you stopped watching a video last time only to experience one or more of the following? * You can’t remember where you left off * That the 6 minutes you had to watch a bit more of the video are now gone * All that excessive scrubbing makes your video player or network go haywire?

Maybe I’m the only one who has far too frequently found himself in the above situations … but if you have also been frustrated by this kind of thing as well I hope you find this app useful as I do.

I made this app for me but if other people find it useful that’s great!

App Purpose ———————— The main purpose of this app is to make it easy to watch videos from YouTube and Vimeo over multiple sittings without losing your place. The goal is to never have to scrub back and forth to find your place in a video ever again!

App Features ———————— * Simple web video player for YouTube and Vimeo videos * App will always resume a video where you last left off! * Can import YouTube and Vimeo video URLs as well as YouTube playlist URLs. * Jump-ahead and jump-back [15-600] seconds! * Jump-to specific time in video! * HD video support * Time stamp detection in video descriptions (tap a time stamp to move the video to that point!) * Allows up to 48 videos at once in playlist * Basic playlist filtering and search functionality * 4 color themes to choose from

Future Features? ———————————— Pending time and interest I may add some of the following features:

Other Stuff ———————————— * On a side note I have to give a shout out to an app/platform I use named “Plex”. Plex reminded me that all video can (and should) have intelligent “resume” functionality and I use it exclusively for all my TV and movie watching. However Plex’s system for resuming YouTube and Vimeo videos has been fairly buggy for me for the past couple years so I had no choice but to make my own app!

Known Issues ———————————— * Sometimes if there are network connection issues on your end or a video host’s end this app or your device may need to be restarted before video playback will continue.

* Certain videos may not play through this app depending on how the author or video host have configured the video embed settings.

* Tapping the YouTube or Vimeo logos in the bottom right corner of a video may cause the YouTube or Vimeo app to “take over” this app’s window. If this happens you’ll need to do a full close of the app and relaunch it. Still looking for a fix for this.

* Report any issues found at the Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/ResumeTube-139143359823864